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Workforce Travel is Costing Finance Leaders Too Much Time and Money

Nov 12, 2024

How Better Technology Can Reduce Time and Costs Spent on Crew Travel

Manual Processes are Costly

Manual processes in your crew travel management present a high cost to travel managers, accounting, and procurement teams.

Many financial decision-makers significantly underestimate how much manual processes are costing their business. With many moving parts, finding inefficiencies can be challenging. While there are hard money costs there is also the toll on human energy and productivity.

Determining the exact amount of time spent on managing work travel can be challenging but you are not alone.

If this sounds familiar, ask yourself the following questions:

Are your manual processes taking up too much time?
Do they cause errors and frustration?
Could your reporting and compliance processes be simplified?
Are there ways to offer greater visibility to track and control costs?
Does your system make it easy for you to pay invoices?

You Have Limited Resources

Manual processes tax your team and limit visibility.

They take time away from higher-priority work, create stress for the travelling crew, and make audit and compliance processes difficult to track. 45% of controllers surveyed identified a lack of visibility into invoices and payables information as their top payables challenge (source: aiminsight.com).

Other time-consuming tasks include invoice processing, booking crew work travel, and accommodation functions.

Keeping track of countless transactions every week can be tedious, exhausting, and cause errors when handled manually.

You can break free from obsolete and time-consuming manual processes. By using a different approach and better technology, you can concentrate on building value and cut costs.

Online Vendor Selection

An effective online platform allows you to efficiently find, book, and manage workforce travel across multiple geographical locations.
Pre-negotiated lower rates for your workforce across thousands of properties in North America significantly reduces costs (whether you’re booking five rooms or 100, for one night or the duration of your project).
Amenities such as oversized truck parking enables you to find the right place for your crew to stay at the click of a button.

Simplify Payment and Reconciliation

A centralized platform enables you to efficiently manage and track your accommodation spend.
Pay only the true costs even when unforeseen changes occur (due to no-shows and inclement weather) to improve visibility and cost control.
Consolidate invoices pre-coded to the appropriate cost tracking code. By doing this, you can eliminate tens of thousands of dollars in administrative hours spent issuing purchase orders for each reservation and reconcile multiple invoices from each accommodation’s vendor.
A centralized platform removes the need for you to maintain relationships with each vendor individually while still benefiting from discounted rates.

Monitor Costs with Powerful and Transparent Reporting

Online reporting functionality provides the insight to manage, analyze, and inform your future workforce travel strategy. Report and see your data in different ways for past and future bookings.
Better technology means you can share information with your teams and manage approvals online. Payment IDs can be provided to your subcontractors and you can use Tracking Codes for even more detailed cost breakdowns to track projects.
Online, real-time reporting dashboards drive efficiency and cost control so you benefit from real-time cost savings.

With LodgeLink, we work to get you where you need to be

We specialize in workforce and crew travel. Unlike other travel management sites, we understand what your team needs because we’ve been there ourselves.

You benefit from our technology and decades of experience in workforce travel management to improve your process efficiency and maximize your travel spend.

Our platform is built around the unique needs of work crews. The result is greater visibility, cost control, and increased efficiency through a platform designed specifically for complex crew travel.